Virginia Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave $467,500 to the campaign of the wife of an FBI official who later helped supervise the probe of Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.
According to The Wall Street Journal, McAuliffe’s political action committee donated to the 2015 Virginia state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI. Of all the political candidates in 2015, Dr. McCabe was the third-largest recipient of donations from McAuliffe’s PAC, Common Good VA.
Dr. McCabe, who launched her campaign in March 2015 and eventually lost her race to Republican incumbent Dick Black, was recruited by McAuliffe and other Democratic State party officials to run.
A spokesman for the governor told the Wall Street Journal that McAuliffe “supported Jill McCabe because he believed she would be a good state senator. This is a customary practice for Virginia governors. … Any insinuation that his support was tied to anything other than his desire to elect candidates who would help pass his agenda is ridiculous.”
The FBI said in a statement that during his wife’s campaign, Mr. McCabe “played no role, attended no events, and did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind. Months after the completion of her campaign, then-Associate Deputy Director McCabe was promoted to Deputy, where, in that position, he assumed for the first time, an oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails.”
However, one current FBI agent did not buy it telling an intermediary for The Daily Caller, “Nobody gets promoted to high administrative posts unless they are politically compatible with this corrupt administration.” The Special Agent added that he believes McCabe to be a “dumb-ass and conceited.”
McAuliffe is presently under investigation by the FBI’s Washington field office regarding a probe that includes donations made on behalf of Chinese businessman Wang Wenliang.
*This post has been updated 5:53 p.m. e.t. 10/24/16